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If a good name is hard to find

There have been a few times a project hit my desk, and as I worked through the design development, I couldn't stop the question rollicking around in my head, "Why did they name their business that?" Most of the time, designers get to work with business names that pass a "good-enough" muster. And truthfully, a name that is only good enough can be imbued with greatness when that business does great work, when it puts out a brilliant product or service, and that's one little nugget of wisdom at the heart of branding.

In such cases, though, where the name really doesn't serve the business it represents, it's a perversely effective illustration of how the relationship between concept and design cannot be undervalued and what happens when it is. A good design can't gloss over a poor choice in names, and bad design can wreck a good name. And, to wax philosophic, our good names are sometimes all we have.